Goddess Rather Than A God
by PixieGirl17
Summary: Ren and Akira's thoughts about their daughter...


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Fruits Basket

A/S: I just felt like doing a one shot at the time. Don't ask me why...

**Goddess Rather Than A God**

For **Sayahisagi01**

He wasn't disappointed that it was a girl. The moment Ren asked for her to be raised a boy Akira knew he would never be able to understand why. Wasn't it every woman's dream to have a little girl to dress up and make her look pretty? He knew he was going to make sure that she was the happiest child in the world even if he wasn't allowed to give her the freedom of embracing her true gender. He wondered whether this would be something that would eternally damage her. He knew that the Sohma's had lived a life of solitude for centuries but that didn't mean they had to hide who they truly were from everybody in the family. The older ones knew about her true gender. He would even hope that one day one of them would come to love her. He was sure that he had always known that he would be more suited to having a daughter rather than a son. He was sure with his temperament and with Ren's beauty and affection, he was sure that a daughter would be better suited to them. He was also grateful of this because of the role she would take. He knew from experience that the role of the God in the family wasn't an easy one. The more he thought about it the more suited it was for a woman. You had to be passive but strong. You had to be kind but firm with the rest of those who were also cursed...Or blessed. Akira was never really sure as to whether they were cursed or blessed.

~ (***) ~

_She knew that he would wish for a girl. She knew that he would be able to say the words but she knew that in his heart that he would never be able to mean those words. He would never be sincere in those prayers and as a result of that she would be cursed. Ren would never be able to loved a cursed child, son or not. She knew it. She knew the moment when she demanded that she would be dressed as a boy if she was born a girl she could see the shock and horror in his eyes. She knew that he would compile though. He loved her enough to do as she asked. She was always able to get him to do as she wished, then again she didn't have to try too hard. They were like-minded souls. She understood him and he understood her therefore there would never be any arguments between them both. There would always be this perpetual peace which the rest of the household would never be able to understand._

~ (***) ~

He had to admit he had his doubts about these matters. Sometimes he wondered whether they were truly happy. Some people told him that all of this was a gift. Although there was something deep inside him telling him that there was a reason to fear this 'gift'. Sometimes it could be seen as a curse. There was no chance of being able to love any one outside the family, even if your heart said otherwise. He was always constantly ill and there was no chance for he or Akito to be able to live a normal life. He remembered as a little boy looking out over the wall and wishing to be like one of those little boys walking to school. Normality was only a dream for those in the Sohma family. He wasn't even sure whether he had made a grave mistake in having a child. He didn't know whether he should be guilty of that. By doing so he would be regretting her very existence and he could never bring himself to do that. Akito was the light of his life. She was the only reason he was able to hope for something better in this life without having to walk out the gates of the Sohma estate. He had no reason to exist until the moment she was born. He remembered when he first held her in his arms and knew this what he had been waiting for. He told Ren that she was going to be the happiest child alive.

_What do you mean by that?_

_I don't understand, Ren. Don't you want your child to be happy._

_Can't I be happy too?_

_Of course, Ren. I would hope you would be happy about this too._

He also began to doubt Ren. At first he knew he loved her. There was a bond between them which could never been understood by anyone outside it. It was like a secret which only the two of them would ever know because they could only understand the full extent of it and all its little complexities. There was always something about those eyes of her. There was a yearning which he understood the moment when his blindness to her love for him ceased. He had a lot of women being thrown at him but the only reason why he rejected them all was because he could never understand him and in return they would never understand him. She understood him. She could see right through him with those eyes of hers. Now he was beginning to doubt her. He could see that distant look in her eyes. Those black eyes which seduced him so easily were beginning to be filled with something else other than desire. Desire to love him, please him, make him well again, give him anything he wanted. He just wanted her but now he had a feeling that she might want something else now. Something which no one, let alone himself could give to her. He was willing to love her but now that they had their daughter he had to give some of the love he had to give to her as well. Wasn't that what was required of a father?

~ (***) ~

_She had to stand firm against all of this. She couldn't give into their demands. That child was loved by enough people. It didn't need her love. It was enough to be loved too much by its father and by everyone else. She knew one day that she would get her revenge for this one day. She would take something which she loved more than anything and would show her she really wasn't loved at all. It was sickening how much they all loved the child. She didn't understand it. She never understood this curse of theirs. She didn't know why they were always abiding by it. She couldn't see what there was to love about it. It was the reason why Akira was so lonely for his entire life. It was the reason why he was sick and why he would one day die. She didn't understand why he didn't hate it rather than love it. It was the reason why they would never be able to spend as much time together as they would be able to unless he didn't die too soon. He always spent the time that he had with the child. He hardly looked at her now. He was always fawning on that pathetic creature. It didn't deserve Akira's love..._

~ (***) ~

He remembered when he said to the head maid in the household that Ren understood his loneliness and in a way she did. She understood him through and through. When he cried he felt all alone but since she arrived he had a feeling that someone had been watching him, like a guardian angel. When he would turn around he would see that there was no one there but he knew now that Ren had always been watching over him as he wept. Now he had someone to be part of their own little world. He was as much a part of Ren's world as she was part of his and now they had a child to occupy that little bubble they had created for themselves. He knew that would have been enough for all of them. He could never understand went wrong...For a moment they were both so happy even when Ren told him she was pregnant. He didn't want Akito to be a lonely. He knew the rest of the Sohma family would make sure of that but he knew he would die soon and it wasn't just about the loneliness. There was other kinds of ways of being lonely. You could be lonely with your emotions. You could be lonely in the sense of feeling like you had never being loved. He could remember what it was like to be lonely with his sickness and he feared more than anything that she might suffer as he did. If so he wanted to make sure that at least one time in her life she knew what it was like to have been loved. At least once...

He had a lot of hopes for his daughter. She was going to be happy. He could see that her cousins loved her enough when she was born. They all crowded around her when they saw her. He loved his daughter more than anything and he knew that was going to come with having aspirations for her as well. He suspected that he loved his daughter more than anyone in this family. He knew that she was a child to be loved because of the role she was to play in this family. She was child to be held by her mother and Ren completely and utterly rejected her. He couldn't see why out of all the people in this family why it was Ren who loved her the least. He had a terrible suspicion that she didn't love Akito at all. She screamed at him to look at her, to acknowledge her existence and he did. He tried his best to remind her that he loved Ren but she had to accept the fact that he had to love Akito too. She made it clear before she was even born that if she was to be born as a girl she would be raised as a boy. He didn't understand it but when she threatened to refuse to give birth to her if she was a girl then he had to give in to this one request. He didn't understand why she had to be so difficult about all this. He supposed that due to the fact that in his heart he wanted a girl that his prayers for a son were never answered because that was something he didn't really want.

She had to be something special therefore she deserved to have a special life. She deserved everything she needed. There was a difference between need and want wasn't there? She needed happiness. She needed to be loved. She needed to have that freedom which he had always been denied. She needed to have something which would give her a reason to carry with this life as much as he had with Ren. He had noticed that little Shigure was someone who seemed to care for her above the rest. He would always be giving her flowers. He would spy at them sometimes in the gardens and he would look at her in the same way Ren used to look at him. He could see her and understand the pain that she went through daily. He could see the reason how and why the head of the family had to and was always going to inevitably suffer. There was no reason for this, it was just how things were.

~ (***) ~

_She knew how she was going to be able to get her revenge now. She knew that she loved someone therefore Ren had a way of hurting her in the same way her own child had hurt her. She had seen the way that Shigure looked at her. His eyes were willed with blinded love, affection and loyalty. There were as clear as day, just as Akira's were when he used to look at her with his eyes so filled with love. She had seen the way her daughter looked at him. She looked do surprised and so vulnerable. There still wasn't that connection that she had with Akira. That would allow it to be easier to break. She was still a child who didn't know what love was. She still loved him though not truly realising what it was that she was feeling towards him. They loved one another and she knew that she was going to tear that apart as much as her child had ripped apart the love between her parents. That was going to be her act of revenge against that ungrateful child. She was going to make her suffer more than she had had suffered from Akira's absence which she had experienced long before her death. She was going to make that flower wilt to the point where it was only a pile of ash which would blown away by the wind. She was going to forget what it was even liked to be loved..._

~ (***) ~

There were many things that he would never be able to understand nor would he be able to have the time to explain to Akito. He wasn't allowed that luxury to see her grow up and see how life would treat her. He didn't know whether she was really going to be loved or whether she was going to be luckier than him. He knew upon the eve of his death that there was going to be some suffering which she had to put herself through. He had to put her through it and that was the one moment and unfortunately his last when he would be most selfish towards her, despite loving her more than anything in this world. But even when he wasn't there he was finally going to be a guardian angel himself but not to Ren. He was going to be Akito's because he knew that his daughter would need him more with what was to come.

He was an unlucky man in some respects despite the life that he had. Even baring that in mind he was unlucky. He had never been able to live a full life as a result of this curse of theirs. He was going to leave this world with regrets. He was never able to reconcile with Ren. He had hoped that before he would leave that he would be able to convince her to see this affection Akito was receiving in a different light. He had hoped that Ren would look after her after he was gone. Akito needed a parent to love her with the trials that she would have ahead. She needed a mother to love her when her father would pass away. Akito needed someone to look after her other than a lover to l let her know there was someone she could always depend on. He could only hope for her now that she was going to be alright after he had gone. He had to hope that everything would be resolved with his death. That perhaps Ren would be able to see how important it was to love her. Ren should have been able to see that she was a special child from the start. She should have been able to know that she was something special because of their own bond, because of the fact that they were able to find one another and understand one another. She understood their love so well but at the same time she was blinded by it as well. She wasn't able to see beyond one another that it would include many others such as their own children. Their union was enough proof of how special their daughter really was.

She would be loved because of that. That was the eternal promise he would give to her. That would be the parting gift that he would never be able to present to her when she came of age or on her wedding day. He could only tell her now that he loved her more than anything in this world, to the point where he would give her this promise before he died. Even when he wasn't there he would be able to survey over her life and would be able to know and witness the love that he had experienced in her own life one day. Even after he was gone she would be happy. He knew that Shigure would be able to look after her. They had no idea that he was watching but he witnessed her carrying her through the gardens one day. It was more than in a brotherly fashion. He knew this was all innocent but he knew from looking into Shigure's eyes that one day he would love her nearly as much as Akira had done. This gave him the assurance that one day she would be loved more than anyone in this world. She would be loved. That was how he knew. That promise was enough to seal that agreement. That was how he knew that it was always better for this family to have a goddess rather than a god...


End file.
